Joy became interested in type design while studying calligraphy and typography under Alexander Nesbitt at the University of Massachusetts, in Dartmouth, Massachusetts (formerly Southeastern Massachusetts University). Joy started her career doing font production for Agfa/Compugraphic in Wimington, MA. From there she went on to draw fonts for Autologic, Imagen and Adobe Systems. Lately, she is painting with mixed media, watercolour and dyes on silk.